Iran
Nobel Prize winner Mohammadi goes on hunger strike
Narges Mohammadi in a photo from 2007. Photo
© Vahid Salemi/AP/dpa
For the second time in a row, the Nobel Peace Prize cannot be presented in person.
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi from the Iran went on a three-day hunger strike 24 hours before her awards ceremony. The human rights activist announced this on her Instagram page, which friends abroad maintain for her. According to Mohammadi, the reason for the hunger strike is Human Rights Day. “On the day of the Nobel Prize ceremony, I want to be the voice of the Iranians who protest against injustice and oppression,” wrote the 51-year-old.
These Nobel Prize winners receive their awards
The 2023 Nobel Prize winners will be honored on Sunday in Norway and Sweden. As usual, the Nobel Peace Prize kicks off in Oslo, but the winner, Narges Mohammadi, cannot be in the Norwegian capital because she is in prison in her home country. She has to be represented by her husband and children. The other Nobel Prizes will be presented in the afternoon by the Swedish King Carl XVI. Gustaf in Stockholm.
The 51-year-old human rights activist Mohammadi is being honored “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.” According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, she was arrested 13 times and sentenced five times – to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. Mohammadi has repeatedly reported sexual violence and other abuses in the notorious Evin prison.
Last year, the Belarusian Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Byaljazki was also unable to come to Oslo. The human rights lawyer, who was imprisoned in his homeland, was honored together with the Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties and the Memorial organization from Russia.
Ferenc Krausz, who teaches in Garching near Munich, is one of the exceptional researchers who will be honored at a ceremony in Stockholm on Sunday. The Hungarian native shares the Nobel Prize in Physics with Anne L’Huillier and Pierre Agostini. The three have found a way to generate extremely short light pulses that can even be used to measure the extremely fast movement of electrons. French-born L’Huillier is only the fifth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. She takes a seat next to the king at the banquet.
The Norwegian Nobel Prize winner for literature Jon Fosse admitted that he was terribly nervous. He has canceled most major performances for more than ten years and for some time considered not coming to the celebrations in Stockholm at all. But then he decided differently. “In my eyes, it’s a kind of big social theater in which I play one role among many others,” said Fosse, the 64-year-old told the Swedish news agency TT before his departure. He is happy to be able to have this experience.
The Nobel Prizes go back to the Swedish chemist, inventor and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel (1833 to 1896) and are traditionally presented on the anniversary of his death, December 10th. This year, the award is endowed with prize money of eleven million Swedish crowns (almost 980,000 euros) per category.